Xandros Buys Linspire in Merger of Business Models

Xandros confirmed Wednesday that it has acquired Linspire, the developer of the Linspire Linux-based OS as well as the Click-n-Run (CNR) shop and business model.

Xandros confirmed Wednesday that it has acquired Linspire, the developer of the Linspire Linux-based OS as well as the Click-n-Run (CNR) shop and business model.

Terms of the deal were not announced. Linspire will remain intact as a wholly owned subsidiary of Xandros.

Surprisingly, the acquisition appears to be more about business models than Linux distributions. Statements made by both companies emphasized the combination of the CNR model with Xandros' own online software warehouse, indicating that perhaps the two might be folded into one. However, the Linspire Linux distribution will not go away, at least for the moment. Freespire will also continue to be maintained as an open-source project.

Linspire was founded by serial entrepreneur Michael Robertson, who indicated that the combination was a true partnership. "Xandros has emerged as a leader in the OEM, mobility, desktop and PC management and application business, so I'm excited to see the Linspire technology, including CNR, go to a worthy competitor that shares our vision," Robertson said in a statement. "The Linux business is going through some healthy and necessary consolidation, which will give resulting companies greater assets and size to deliver on larger initiatives so Linux can touch more people."

One deficiency of Linux is that it's difficult to find and install new software," Robertson added on his blog. "To address this shortcoming, Linspire built CNR Technology which I'm more excited about than ever. CNR is a marketplace where users can browse for software programs (free and commercial), download and install with a single mouse click. More than 10,000,000 Linux software programs have been installed via CNR which now works for Ubuntu, Debian and other Linux versions. New systems like eee PC need CNR which is why Linspire marrying Xandros makes sense. "

However, Kevin Carmony, the ex-chief executive and president of Linspire, was outraged over the apparent lack of shareholder input into the deal."Why would Linspire pull off a midnight, back-room sell-off without a shareholders meeting? I'd ask them myself, but they haven't returned emails from me in the last ten months, and since they didn't hold a shareholders meeting in this matter, one is only left to speculate.

"This will end up being a completely insignificant event for Linspire shareholders and the end for Linspire customers," Carmony wrote.